A May 12 FrontPageMag article by Daniel Greenfield rants about "the leftist hijacking of black identity," declaring that this means "Hillary would be America’s third black president." Greenfield's article is accompanied by this image:

We've generally ignored the Truth Revolt media-watchdog blog, largely because it's a second-rate ripoff of NewsBusters and part of the David Horowitz cult of personality. But it appears that Ben Shapiro and Co. are desperate for attention, as painfully illustrated by Shapiro's April 10 column accusing Stephen Colbert of "political blackface," complete with a vintage photo of an actual blackface entertainer. Shapiro goes on to complain that making fun of conservatives is just like racism:

This is the purpose of Colbert’s routine. His show is about pure hatred for conservatives in the same way that blackface was about pure hatred of blacks. In order to justify their racism, racists had to create a false perception of blacks; in the same way, Colbert and his audience can justify their racism only by creating a false perception of conservatives.

Shapiro seems to have ignored the fact that conservatives could come up with a liberal Colbert. But conservatives like Shapiro are too ideological to create genuinely effective political humor at Colbert's level, as anyone who has ever watched NewsBusters' "NewsBusted" or D.J. Dolce's WorldNetDaily videos can attest.

But even if Shapiro had a coherent point to make, it's lost because of his use of the blackface image. That just screams of desperation, a "hey, look at me!" tactic, an attempt to advance a few rungs on the right-wing media ladder by putting provocation before substance.

Will Shapiro succeed? Given his history of shooting himself in the foot with dickishness masquerading as edginess -- smearing a fellow Jew as a "kapo," refusing to admit he got snookered in the "Friends of Hamas" fiasco -- we suspect Truth Revolt will, sooner than later, go the way of the Horowitz group's previous blog effort, NewsReal.

But not before Shapiro provides even more examples of living up to the "revolting" part of Truth Revolt.

Just like NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard, TruthRevolt devoted a Nov. 25 post by Jeff Dunetz to a claim that a college history professor said that "If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live," attributing it to "the progressive Diversity Chronicle."

But as we pointed out when Sheppard did it, Diversity Chronicle is not "progressive" -- it's a right-wing satirical site that links to numerous "white nationalist" websites, as well as sites that promote eugenics and Holocaust denial.

If TruthRevolt is going to ape NewsBusters, they should at least go all the way -- unlike Dunetz, Sheppard has updated his post to acknowledge it's a hoax.

A Nov. 11 TruthRevolt item claiming the Columbia Journalism Review that "has now suggested that CBS News ought never to cover issues negative to Democrats because CBS also owns the conservative imprint Threshold Editions" adds in parentheses: "Full disclosure: Threshold Editions is my publisher as well."

Why bother to highlight this when TruthRevolt performed an increasingly rare act of disclosure? Because the post carries no byline. Therefore, we do not know who exactly is making this disclosure, thus defeating the purpose of it.

Actually, it's a blog by Ben Shapiro first posted at Breitbart then rearranged for TruthRevolt consumption. The fact that the TruthRevolt version is anonymous yet carries a disclosure from the author is a sign that the folks at TruthRevolt could really use an editor.

Another sign: While the blog post correctly identifies the publisher involved in the CBS "60 Minutes" Benghazi debacle as Threshold Editions, the blog's subhead identifies the firm as "Threshold Books," which is not the name.

And both versions of the post exclude one point of contention that even TruthRevolt should agree was a problem: Nowhere in the "60 Minutes" piece was it mentioned that a division of CBS published a book featured on "60 Minutes." (It wasn't disclosed in the retraction, either.) As the Columbia Journalism Review article TruthRevolt criticizes notes, CBS essentially "ran a 12-minute infomercial" for a book published by another CBS division.

If TruthRevolt can't do any decent editing, it has no hope of growing behind the paleimitation of NewsBusters the site currently is.

That would bed important to know, especially since NewsBusters also issued an Oct. 28 post by Matt Hadro with a similar headline: "What?! PolitiFact Says Obama's 'You Will Keep Your Health Insurance' Promise Is Still 'Half True'."

Unlike NewsBusters, TruthRevolt does not list the time of day its items are posted, so we don't know which post came first. But if the TruthRevolt post appeared after NewsBuysters, it would be really embarrassing -- not to mention dishonest -- to portray it as an "exclusive," especially since it contains nothing that wasn't in the NewsBusters post.

Again, it appears that TruthRevolt is simply apingNewsBusters. So if it's merely duplicating the content of others, what is its purpose, other than to further the David Horowitz cult of personality?

One of them is Heathering. An Oct. 21 post attacks Business Insider's Josh Barro for deviating from the right's anti-Obamacare dogma by dismissing him as someone "who has masqueraded as the left’s favorite conservative."

Another one is promotion of discredited sources. An Oct. 22 post by Paul Bois goes after MSNBC's Chris Matthews' denial of FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe's claim that polls showing the American public blaming Republicans for the government shutdown can be blamed on media bias:

This probably would've been a good time for Kibbe to suggest that Matthews head down to his local bookstore to pick up a copy of Left Turn by Tim Groseclose. Indeed, the book's studies reveal the heavy sway media bias (left leaning) has on the average American -- 25 points on a scale of 100 to be exact.

As we've documented, Groseclose's book -- which was promoted by NewsBusters and others in the ConWeb upon its release in 2011 -- uses a methodology that is highly flawed. Under its definition, the National Rifle Association is only slightly more conservative than the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Drudge Report "leans left" because the methodology doesn't take into account Drudge's biased presentation of the news.

The capper: Even though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Media Research Center has yet to acknowledge TruthRevolt's existence.

A couple weeks ago, the David Horowitz Freedom Center started up a website called TruthRevolt, which claims as a goal to "unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases."It's headed by Breitbart's Ben Shapiro, who's perhaps best know around these parts for his petulant whining, as well as his ugly smear of Rahm Emanuel as a "kapo." So, yeah, Shapiro will be putting the "revolting" in TruthRevolt.

So far, though, TruthRevolt is covering much the same ground as NewsBusters -- even writing blogs on the exact same subjects. Perhaps that's why we've seen no mention of TruthRevolt on any Media Research Center website.

In addition, the website has earmarks of the David Horowitz cult of personality -- the TruthRevolt front page promotes two Horowitz books and "David Horowitz's Restoration Weekend."

TruthRevolt is also following NewsBusters' tradition of putting its right-wing agenda before solid research. An unbylined Oct. 17 item attacks "The View" co-host Jenny McCarthy for invoking a Jewish stereotype, then added, "But McCarthy is a leftist appearing in the mainstream media, and thus escaped scot-free."

In fact, both the mainstream media and the "leftist" media has been harshly critical of McCarthy for something much worse than invoking a Jewish stereotype: her promotion of the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism, which increased when she joined "The View." A quick Google search returns articles from the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The New Yorker, The Nation, Huffington Post, National Geographic, MSN and NPR. It wasn't that hard to do.

We realize TruthRevolt is new to the media-monitoring game, but here's a pro tip: Do a little research before you spout off, lest you look even more like the uninformed partisans you are.

In an Aug. 6 FrontPageMag post, Vadum claims that President Obama is engaging in a "nickel-and-dime approach to disenfranchisement" by challenging an Ohio law that doesn't give civilians the same extended early-voting period granted to members of the military. Vadum insists that this is a "real-life example of a political candidate trying to make it harder for those Americans who don’t support him to vote.

In fact, as even the conservatives at Hot Air admit, the Obama campaign is not seeking to reduce the military early-voting window -- it's trying to increase the civilian early-voting window to that of the military. In other words, no military disenfranchisement is going on at all.

In an Oct. 17 FrontPageMag article, Jamie Glazov writes that "WikiLeaks recently released a secret cable revealing that President Obama tried to apologize to the Japanese for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during his tour to that country in 2009." Glazov went on to add, "That Obama sought to apologize to the Japanese for ending a brutal war that they started and for doing it in such a way that it saved millions of lives on both sides is a disturbing testament to the destructive mindset of the man that leads the United States." At the end of the column, Glazov asserted again that Obama was "planning to apologize for the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

Glazov is lying. In fact, the WikiLeaks cable in question says no such thing; rather, it repeats speculation from "anti-nuclear groups" on whether Obama would apologize, but goes on to state that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'non-starter.'"

Even Fox News has apologized for reporting that an apology was planned. Now it's Glazov's turn to apologize.

We haven't paid much attention to the David Horowitz empire lately -- indeed, the death of his NewsReal blog in May went by with little notice by, well, anyone. (We won't miss the catfights at all.) Even the fact that hateful right-wing columnist Ben Shapiro is ensconced at the David Horowitz Freedom Center as something all too appropriately called the "Shillman Journalism Fellow" is indicative of how little influence Horowitz has in the mainstream of public debate.

Horowitz, however, does have influence in the far-right streams he has confined himself to. Alleged Norway terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik issued a manifesto that cites Horowitz's FrontPageMag at least 34 times and, as we've noted, copiously cites some of Horowitz's fellow travelers like Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, and Walid Shoebat.

So what does Horowitz do? Complain that this was pointed out. From a July 25 FrontPageMag item:

The New York Times today has a wretched editorial masquerading as a news story on Robert Spencer and his alleged complicity in the Oslo massacres because his ideas are cited by the lunatic responsible. Joseph McCarthy could not have done it better. The Times next will blame Noam Chomsky for the crimes of Osama bin Laden and Al Gore for the crimes of the Unabomber since the ideas of both were cited by the lunatics. Chomsky is not only cited by the Islamic terrorists, he openly supports them - yet the Times would be the first to express shock and outrage at the mere suggestion of Chomsky's complicity in the crimes of al-Qaeda, Hizbollah and Hamas.

Robert Spencer has never supported a terrorist act. His crime in the eyes of the left is to have told the truth about Islamic fanatics beginning with the Islamic prophet who called for the extermination of the Jews and said in his farewell speech that he was called to fight until all men say that there is no God but allah. (see Bruce Thornton's article today's Frontpage).

The attack on Robert Spencer, a man of great courage and decency, is just one phase in the war against all those who speak out against Islamic terror and Islamic imperialism. The Times attack is but the latest and most repulsive salvo in this war.

Horowitz's complaint about McCarthy-esque tactics is interesting, since he has historically criticized only McCarthy's means, not his goal. In his review of an Ann Coulter book defending McCarthy, Horowitz criticized McCarthy for being "demagogic" and because "his recklessness injured the anti-Communist cause." He doesn't criticize the anti-Communist cause itself.

All Horowitz offers is a reflexive defense of Spencer, and no reflection whatsoever on why a person like Breivik would find Spencer's work so inspirational for his terrorist acts.

NewsReal's Megan Fox is shocked -- shocked! -- that I would refer to her as a "hateful catty bitch" over her claim that the media is making insufficient fun of Michelle Obama's looks. Fox insists that I "displayed typical leftist etiquette when talking about a conservative woman."

My answer to that is that I do not show respect to anyone who has not earned it, conservative or otherwise. Making catty remarks about someone's looks, whether or not she is the first lady, is the epitome of bitchiness. It can be argued that I merely told the truth about Fox; it's not my fault that she finds offense.

Fox then proved the accuracy of my analysis by reacting in the manner we have come to expect from her -- more catty, bitchy remarks, this time about me and the kind of person she imagines I am. Because I am a gentleman, I will not sink to her level by responding in kind but will, instead, expand my analysis of her: it seems she's not only a bitch, but an immature one as well.

Fox again insists that the media really does need to make fun of Michelle Obama's looks:

I expect the first lady of the United States to conduct herself with propriety and elegance, which includes taking a basic protocol class that covers not touching the Queen of England inappropriately or wearing a shlumpy cardigan to Buckingham Palace. And I expect the media not to compare anyone to Jackie O who wears such hideous things as that rag above, and if they do, I reserve the right to call them on it. If that makes me a hateful, catty bitch, carve it in stone and nail it to my office door. (I may have cards printed.)

One could say that Fox is displaying typical right-wing etiquette when talking about a liberal woman.

Fox then huffed that I misinterpreted her:

Clearly, I am commenting on Michelle’s wardrobe, not her looks. She has the ability to dress well. Here’s a perfect example. Notice no pulling, bulging or awful leather and metal studded belts. (There’s no need to have a perfect body if you dress it well.) This is stunning.

Of course, a wardrobe is part of one's look. It's silly to pretend, as Fox does, that the two are completely separate things. But who died and made her Anna Wintour? Fox's Photoshopping work notwithstanding, I have no opinion to offer about Michelle Obama's looks -- besides, it's Fox's opinion on the subject, not mine, that are of issue.

Then she's back to making more immature, catty remarks about me -- thus obliterating any high-road sympathy she may have had in pretending to be victimized by this big ol' meanie -- ultimately concluding:

The real hater is Krepel who has attacked a woman he doesn’t know by using misogynistic and vitriolic profanity to dehumanize and victimize his target. Ass.

In fact, I made my judgment about Fox -- accurately, I would proffer -- based on what she wrote. Her response only confirms the accuracy of my assessment. Yes, "bitch" is an undeniably vitriolic word, but is it really worse than what Fox wrote about Obama (and me)? It's a harsh word that should be used sparingly and only when appropriate. I believe I did so. I chose that particular word for one reason and one reason only: becuase it accurately described the tone of what Fox was writing.

Also, let's not pretend that Fox was offering cogent political analysis in her hit piece. Her goal was the same one she acribes to me: to dehumanize and victimize her target, in this case the Obamas. Projecting much?

To sum up, Megan: If you're not actually the person your writings show you to be, perhaps you should stop writing like that.

Prove you're a better person than the vitriol you spew at NewsReal, Megan. I would love to see it, even if it would prove me wrong.

A Jan. 9 NewsReal post by Megan Fox is titled "The 11 Most Ludicrous Free Passes Given to The Obamas." It's the usual right-wing claptrap, plus one shockingly hateful one: One of those "free passes" is that Michelle Obama wears things Fox doesn't like.

And yet, the press (even the mean-queen Joan Rivers) is silent on what can only be described (truthfully) as a hot mess. Of all the strange and borderline absurd outfits in the first lady’s closet, this next one bothered me the most. As the FLOTUS, Michelle should recognize that she represents this country at all times and when stepping off of Air Force One she should know there are going to be photographers beaming her image across the world. Put on a suit, smile for the cameras and then go change into your vacation-wear at the (very expensive) hotel we put you up in. Do not get off Air Force One wearing something most people wouldn’t even wear to pull weeds.

And then, just for laughs we have the ever-present, not easily understood and always growing Klingon War Belt collection. Thank God for the Internet and snarky writers with blogs! Without them, we would be subjected to the grovelling, sycophantic praise of outfits that are simply head-scratch worthy. I don’t get this. Michelle can look great. I’ve seen it. Why does she do this to herself?

Whose bright idea was this giant belt (wide enough to retread your tires) over the little cardigan? Is anyone wearing this look but her? I haven’t seen it anywhere. If Michelle really was like Jackie O, who inspired an entire era of fashion, every mom on the block would be belting their cardigans with mini corsets. I’ve seen the belts…but not like this. This is something so special it has inspired another Web site (doing the job the old press used to do.)

They’re going to have to add an entire wing to the Smithsonian just to house Michelle’s belts! A famous play in the leftist handbook is to keep repeating a lie until people believe it’s true. There is a concerted effort by the media to tell us the first lady is the most fashionable first lady they’ve ever seen. But our eyes keep contradicting their claims. The hypnosis job isn’t working on me. How about you?

If Fox thinks that not calling Michelle Obama ugly is the worst thing the media has done, there's no need to lose sleep over this. Although, perhaps, Fox ought to for being such a hateful, catty bitch.

Meanwhile ...Topic: Horowitz
Media Matters, as part of its examination of Byron Williams, who got into a firefight with police as he was headed to shoot up the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU in San Francisco after claiming inspiration from Glenn Beck, has a sidebar on Discover the Networks, the David Horowitz website purporting to be a "Guide to the Political Left." Turns out Williams drew some inspiration from DTN's conspiratorial musings as well.

As yet anotherreminder that NewsReal is, at its core, designed to cultivate and maintain a cult of personality around David Horowitz, we bring you a Sept. 20 post by Donald Douglas, who gets into a comment-thread slapfight with a blogger who committed the impeachable offense of criticizing Horowitz.

After the blogger also took issue with Douglas' use of the “the freakish nihilism of the radical left” in praising one of Horowitz's books, Douglas responded:

Two things of interest right away: (1) The complete dismissal of David Horowitz’s ideals as sheer lunacy, and (2) the rejection of my use of the phrase “freakish nihilism” to describe the ideological agenda of the left. There’s a word for this: Anti-intellectualism. And that stance marinates in a devilish sauce of hard left-wing hubris and deceit. It’s further soaked in hatred, for to hate one’s enemies is to categorize them as beyond the pale of reason and civilization.

Perhaps there’s some psychology at work for Brendan. Someone as esteemed as David Horowitz, who lived through — in direct participation — all the cultural revolts of the last couple of generations, is ridiculed as a crazed milk crate screamer? Brendan certainly thinks he’s got it all figured out. But I doubt he’s actually read the book in question, Horowitz’s The Politics of Bad Faith.

After the blogger responds back that Douglas' sole argument this far is "Let’s talk about David Horowitz and how great he is!" Douglas takes further umbrage:

And so, David Horowitz, and myself, apparently, are out standing on a corner, on milk boxes, raving like alleged lunatics? This is what Brendan calls debate. As I said, concepts are in play here. Ideas have consequences. Why is it that Democrats utter nary a peep when declared Stalinist ideologues wind up gaining access to the top levels of the Obama administration? These same folks, including many Democrats in Congress — including dozens who have open affiliations with the Democratic Socialist Party of America — call for and implement a Castro-style healthcare regime in the U.S. Of course, these people blow off the mass murder and desolation of the such communist thugs.

The blogger then complains that Douglas has no interest in anything other than "howling how everything Left is irredeemably evil," Douglas goes off on a logic-free tangent:

What you see here is the notion that leftist ideology is UNCHALLENGEABLE. There’s nothing that can penetrate the hard-shell of neo-communist ideology. Anyone with a different idea is literally a “Flat Earther.”

Truly amazing. Meanwhile, these people and their grand schemes for a nationalization of the U.S. health delivery system under ObamaCare socialism are running for the hills. It’s not working. Costs are not going down. Firms are responding by not hiring, precisely at the same time that unemployment keeps rising. It’s statism that’s failing, and the idea that state planning — THE CENTRAL COMPONENT OF ALL SOCIALIST IDEOLOGY — is proving just one more disaster rammed down American throats by the mandarins of the Democrat-Socialist Party in Washington.

I don’t know how old Brendan is. He is idealistic. Perhaps the real world will intrude sometime in his life, and he’ll learn to appreciate an actual argument for what it is an not the twisting evasion of some wingnut hokus pokus.

Douglas concludes by quoting the Scriptures -- er, David Horowitz. Just like a True Believer.

In a Sept. 22 NewsReal post, unapologetic gay-basher Kathy Shaidle purports to detail "George Soros’ 8 Most Despicable Acts." Her rant, however, has been interrupted by the facts, and NewsReal isn't happy about it.

As part of the first "despicable act" Soros purportedly did, Shaidle quoted from a column by Ezra Levant claiming that Soros "collaborated with the Nazis." That is a libelous distortion of what Soros actually did as a 14-year-old during World War II, which was pose as the godson of a Hungarian official who oversaw the confiscation of property from Hungarian Jews. The Canadian newspaper that first published Levant's column has retracted it because it "contained false statements about George Soros and his conduct as a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary."

Shaidle claimed that Levant relied in part "upon research conducted by David Horowitz," but doesn't mentiont that Horowitz got it wrong too.

Soros, understandably, wanted to correct the record, which resulted in a fit of all-caps typing by NewsReal. The headline of Shaidle's post now parenthetically adds that it was "UPDATED AFTER THREAT BY SOROS’ LAWYERS", and the space where the Levant excerpt was located now states:

EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS EXCERPT FROM LEVANT'S COLUMN HAS BEEN REMOVED AFTER KATHY SHAIDLE RECEIVED CORRESPONDENCE FROM SOROS' LAWYERS. NO WORD YET ON IF SOROS' LAWYERS HAVE CONTACTED MEDIA MATTERS FOR REPRINTING THE EXCERPT TOO AT THEIR WEBSITE HERE.

The unnamed editor appears not to understand the difference between uncritically repeating a lie, which Shaidle did, and repeating a lie as part of correcting it, which is what Media Matters did.

Shaidle's post now begins with another editor's note:

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised since it was first published. Because its author, Kathy Shaidle, is Canadian she is not protected by the same first amendment and libel laws that Americans are. Thus despite the fact that the information she presented has floated around the American blogosphere for years and was published in David Horowitz and Richard Poe’s The Shadow Party, because of where she lives Soros’ goons were able to target her with legal threats. That is the nature of the totalitarian personality we’re dealing with here.

Really? It's "totalitarian" for someone to respond to lies being told about them and to try and correct the record?

It seems Shaidle and NewsReal are upset that they aren't allowed to tell lies with impunity about people they don't like. The right to be above the law that they seem to be asserting is much more "totalitarian" than Soros' actions.